About Us
.
My heart is stirred to near crying when I see a patient who has been suffering with pain for two-years with limited knee motion, drainage of pus down the leg, and a smell that is offensive to all around. Her family is poor and unable to get care other than antibiotics that will not cure her. They can’t afford the surgery and hospitalization that is needed.
This is the agony of patients in remote areas of poor countries. Suffering, poverty, and unavailability of good medical care. She had some antibiotics in a government hospital, which did not cure her. We used about $300 of benevolence funds for her care. They are bringing more and more of these patients to us from southern Ethiopia.
Dr. Solomon Endrias removed a piece of dead bone from her thigh about the size of a hotdog. The presence of this dead bone prevented the surrounding bone from healing. Unfortunately, at many of the hospitals they don’t take an x-ray or they don’t know how to interpret the dead bone on the x-ray, and so no surgery is done. Now she will be in the hospital for three weeks with a daily packing of the wound and will likely be healed.
The biggest cause of death at SCH continues to be mothers who have tried to deliver at home and the baby is "stuck" and usually dead, and the mother is near death. We could change this if we could lower the price for normal delivery in the hospital. Our plan is to have a midwife on duty 24/7/365, but this will take a financial commitment on our part. If we could lower the price to about $20 USD I think that more would come. I believe we are now at $50 or more. This keeps the poor away. However, $20 USD will not cover our costs, and we would need increased funding from the benevolence fund to make this happen. Although we are a non-profit hospital, we are a fee-for-service facility where the fees provide employment for the Ethiopian doctors, nurses and others that are integral to meeting the medical and spiritual needs of the people in this region of Ethiopia.
We praise God for the generosity of many believers in Europe and in the USA to the SCH benevolent fund. The following are the annual figures for free care that we provide at SCH from those contributions. The figures are in USD. Pray with us that this trend of increasing amounts of free care can happen at SCH despite the worldwide economy.
2006 $7,401
2007 $15,695
2008 $26,556
2009 $7,870 year to date
Grand total given to the Benevolence fund since inception: $57,522
We have seen many people come to know Christ. With increased funding, through the benevolence fund, we would have the opportunity to not only save the lives of more mothers and their children, but also have the opportunity to share Christ with those that we serve. Please pray with us about this need. Contact Ken Amstutz, Treasurer, St. Luke’s Heath Care Foundation, at ken@soddo.org, with any questions related to the benevolence fund, or visit our website at www.soddo.org.
Prayer and Praise:
· Continue to pray for a unified vision for reaching the lost and for small group discipleship.
· Please pray for daily strength for each of us.
· A top priority at the hospital is an additional water well. We are currently getting bids for a new well, and the first bid came in much higher than what we had expected. We hope to receive other bids that are less costly. In the last month we received contributions of $10,050 toward this well. We are thankful for God's provision and for those that have given toward this project – thank you! We currently have a total of $16,050 available for this project, which includes the $1 for $2 matching grant funds. Through this new water well we will be able to quench the physical thirst of those that we serve, and by sharing Christ with those we serve, He will provide "living water" so that spiritually they will never thirst again. Please continue to pray for this project – we will keep you updated.
Thank you for your faithful support of the work here at Soddo Christian Hospital. We greatly appreciate your prayers. Please pray that God will continue to bless and provide for the leadership team and the entire staff of SCH, as we endeavor to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people here in the Soddo, Wolaitta region of Ethiopia.
Praise the Lord,
Duane Anderson, MD
.
.